Maddeningly, I can't work out how to see what effects have been applied to a text layer. I can see the attributes when I expand the options on that layer, but I can't see any way of telling which actual effect is applied because it doesn't appear in the Effect Controls panel like for everything else. Please enlighten me.

you probably mean you are using text animators and not effects. text animators don't have a designated panel and can only be seen in the timeline panel. you can twirl down the text properties to see all of the options

you can also press UU and you will see all the modified properties for the layer, including text animators and range selectors that are used to create text animations based on characters and words in all sort of interesting ways.

yeah as I mentioned, they're not in the Effects Control panel. I applied them from Animation Presets in the Effects & Presets panel. When I expand the text properties I do see all that stuff, but none of it tells me which effect has actually been applied. It's such a basic requirement. This is what I get when I expand the mystery layer:

yeah as I mentioned, they're not in the Effects Control panel. I applied them from Animation Presets in the Effects & Presets panel.

As I have explained in my response - these are NOT effects so they won't be in the effects controls panel. If you want to examine them, you do that in the timeline panel in the methods I described. You should read about text presets and text animators. all you have to do is type text in search field in the upper left corner of your Ae interface and read up - you will solve this mystery I assure you.

When I expand the text properties I do see all that stuff, but none of it tells me which effect has actually been applied. It's such a basic requirement.

I wrote this in my initial response: "you can also press UU and you will see all the modified properties for the layer, including text animators and range selectors that are used to create text animations based on characters and words in all sort of interesting ways"

I will explain further: when you press UU - you are seeing all that has been changed in these layer values, including keyframes. this is how you examine the preset and know how to reconstruct it.

my screengrab was of my timeline panel, where I was indeed examining them. I've looked up the help section about text animators/presets but I can't see anything there that tells me the answer to my question. which is why I've posted on here.

my response about them not being in the effects control panel was to the other contributor, Dave LaRonde.

About text animation

As with other layers in After Effects, you can animate entire text layers. However, text layers offer additional animation features with which you can animate the text within the layers. You can animate text layers by using any of the following methods:

Animate the Transform properties, as you would any other layer, to change the entire layer, not its text contents.

if we read carefully, there is no mention about effects. there is a mention about text animation presets. let's go there and examine that:

Text animation presets

Browse and apply text animation presets as you would any other animation presets. You can browse and apply animation presets in After Effects using the Effects & Presets panel or Adobe Bridge. To open the Presets folder in Adobe Bridge, choose Browse Presets from the Effects & Presets panel menu or from the Animation menu. (See Apply an effect or animation preset and Animation presets.)

Note:

A great way to see how advanced users use After Effects is to apply an animation preset, and press U or UU to reveal only the animated or modified layer properties. Viewing the animated and modified properties shows you what changes the designer of the animation preset made to create the animation preset.

see what's written on the Note there - this is how you browse the animation that was applied to the text. these text animation presets are constructed from text animators and range selectors - not effects. you should read about those as well. when you learn how to use them, it will all make sense why they are not in the effects controls panel to begin with.

I'm afraid I still don't see how this tells me which specific animation preset has been applied. It only shows me its attributes.

when you apply a text animation preset - you are applying a set of predefined values and keyframes that are constructed of text animators and sometimes also expression controls to a layer. the name for these bunch of properties together won't be visible anywhere else once you apply it because many times it includes many properties together that can't be grouped together as a single container that can be renamed. you shouldn't worry about that because once you apply a preset, you should know what it's doing anyway, but if you do want to name the text animators that this preset was constructed with, you can do that by hitting return on the animator and changing it's name.

if you have typed UU and there are no keyframes it means that there aren't any. you can see the red values indicating there is an expression code to these layers. this preset is probably driven only by code and not keyframes and you can set the parameters as you like and guess what - this actually can be determined in the effects controls panel.

you can see expression sliders and you can adjust them in the timeline panel or the effects controls panel.

If you select the layer in question and press the U key twice to reveal all modified properties and you do not see any keyframes then there are no keyframes in the animation. In this case, assuming there are no other keyframes you missed because you didn't press the u key twice, the animation is completely controlled by the expressions. You either have to edit these expressions or if you simply want to start the animation later in the timeline, Split the layer (Shift + Ctrl/Cmnd + d) where you want to start the animation and apply the preset to the top copy or remove the expressions from the bottom copy.